Various industries have networks associated with them. One such industry is the utility industry that manages a power grid. The power grid may include one or all of the following: electricity generation, electric power transmission, and electricity distribution. Electricity may be generated using generating stations, such as a coal fire power plant, a nuclear power plant, etc. For efficiency purposes, the generated electrical power is stepped up to a very high voltage (such as 345K Volts) and transmitted over transmission lines. The transmission lines may transmit the power long distances, such as across state lines or across international boundaries, until it reaches its wholesale customer, which may be a company that owns the local distribution network. The transmission lines may terminate at a transmission substation, which may step down the very high voltage to an intermediate voltage (such as 138K Volts). From a transmission substation, smaller transmission lines (such as sub-transmission lines) transmit the intermediate voltage to distribution substations. At the distribution substations, the intermediate voltage may be again stepped down to a “medium voltage” (such as from 4K Volts to 23K Volts). One or more feeder circuits may emanate from the distribution substations. For example, four to tens of feeder circuits may emanate from the distribution substation. The feeder circuit is a 3-phase circuit comprising 4 wires (three wires for each of the 3 phases and one wire for neutral). Feeder circuits may be routed either above ground (on poles) or underground. The voltage on the feeder circuits may be tapped off periodically using distribution transformers, which step down the voltage from “medium voltage” to the consumer voltage (such as 120V). The consumer voltage may then be used by the consumer.
Power companies may manage the power grid, including managing usage, faults, maintenance, and upgrades related to the power grid. However, the management of the power grid is often inefficient and costly. For example, a power company that manages the local distribution network may manage faults that may occur in the feeder circuits or on circuits, called lateral circuits, which branch from the feeder circuits. The management of the local distribution network often relies on telephone calls from consumers when an outage occurs or relies on field workers analyzing the local distribution network.
In order to mitigate inefficiencies with management of the power grid, power companies have attempted to upgrade the power grid using digital technology, sometimes called a “smart grid.” A smart grid is an intelligent network that may use one or more of sensing, embedded processing, digital communications, and software to manage network-derived information. For example, more intelligent meters (sometimes called “smart meters”) are a type of advanced meter that identifies consumption in more detail than a conventional meter. The smart meter may then communicate that information via a network back to the local utility for monitoring and billing purposes (telemetering). Through smart meters and other infrastructure, the smart grid may include capabilities to support major business functions including power delivery, asset management, and customer experience enablement.
Although upgrading to a smart grid may greatly improve efficiency and reduce costs in the long run, the challenge and costs of upgrading to a smart grid are not trivial. For example, power companies may be faced with questions such as how will existing and emerging technologies impact the wired and wireless network infrastructure needed for smart grid; how much bandwidth, including wireless spectrum, will be required to support the business in the future; what are the capital and operational costs to build, upgrade and maintain the network based on business and technology forecasts. Without accurate answers to these questions, the power company may not be able to accurately estimate upgrade costs, which can lead to extensive budget overruns. Also, the capacity of the infrastructure of the smart grid may be insufficient if traffic is underestimated or the infrastructure may be substantially over-provisioned.